PAPERS   OF    THE   HISTORICAL    SOCIETY  OF   DELAWARE. 

XI. 


Crane  Hook  Church. 


PR]  DKCESSOR    OF 


THE  OLD  SWEDES'  CHURCH 


WILMINGTON,   DELAWARE. 


BY 


PENNOCK    PUSEY,    ESQ. 

WILMINGTON,    ur.l.AWAUK. 


Read  before  the  Historical  Society  of  Delaware,  June  iS,  1894. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY   OF    DELAWARE, 

WILMINGTON. 
1895. 


PAPERS   OF    THE  HISTORICAL    SOCIETY  OF  DELAWARE. 

XI 


\ Crane  Hook  Church. 


PREDECESSOR    OF 


THE  OLD  SWEDES'  CHURCH 


WILMINGTON,   DELAWARE. 


\ 


BY 


PENNOCK    PUSEY,    ESQ., 

WILMINGTON,    DELAWARE. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY   OF   DELAWARE, 

WILMINGTON. 
I895. 


t 


CRANE   HOOK  CHURCH. 


Careful  readers  of  history  well  know  how  large  has 
been  the  agency  of  religion  in  promoting  the  exploration 
and  settlement  of  the  New  World  by  people  from  the  Old. 
Indeed,  it  scarcely  needs  a  critical  student  of  history  to  dis- 
cover how  essentially  the  aspirations,  condition,  and  destiny 
of  man  in  his  general  career  are  involved  with  and  shaped 
by  his  religious  convictions. 

One  of  the  longest  and  certainly  the  bloodiest  and  most 
destructive  of  the  world's  conflicts — the  great  Thirty  Years' 
War — had  religion  in  some  of  its  needs  and  aspects  as  its 
real  origin,  its  professed  object,  and  its  sustaining  cause. 
And,  however  humiliating  the  thought,  however  saddening 
the  cruelties  or  monstrous  the  inconsistency  that  men 
should  thus  sacrifice  the  end  to  the  means,  that  professing 
Christians  should  make  war  for  Him  who  enjoined  Peace, 
and  butcher  each  other  into  compliance  with  the  command 
not  to  kill;  yet  nothing,  perhaps,  than  the  prosecution  of 
that  exhaustive  war  with  ali  its  atrocities  more  effectually 
refutes  the  dishonoring  pessimism  which  assumes  that  the 
average  man  is  an  ignoble  self-seeker  actuated  only  by 
selfish  motives.     Never  did  thought  of  self  sway  so  little, 


4  CRANE   HOOK   CHURCH. 

perhaps,  as  with  the  actors  on  either  side  in  that  sanguinary- 
struggle.  No  incentive  to  personal  gain;  no  fear  of  injus- 
tice within,  nor  danger  of  foes  without  the  state  ever 
induced  such  an  outpouring  of  means,  energies,  and  sacri- 
fices as  the  people  there  volunteered  in  the  ardor  of  their 
religious  devotion.  What  the  law  failed  to  exact,  the  peo- 
ple freely  gave  to  support  and  carry  on  that  pious  contest. 
No  cowardly  evasion  of  duty  or  base  gratification  of  pas- 
sion could  avail  against  the  dictates  of  conscience  and  noble 
fealty  to  faith.  For  ordinary  purposes,  the  overtaxed  sup- 
porters of  government  would  have  bitterly  resisted  the 
slightest  additional  impost;  but  for  religious  principle,  to 
vindicate  their  cherished  faith,  the  people  cheerfully  sad- 
dled themselves  with  fresh  burdens,  and  for  thirty  weary 
years  persevered  in  a  struggle  whose  waste  of  life  and 
treasure  yet  continues  its  direful  effects  after  a  lapse  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

With  that  great  war  at  least  one  of  the  movements  for 
emigration  to  America  was  deeply  concerned.  Indeed,  the 
sad  conflict  had  a  direct,  if  not  logical,  connection  with  the 
origin  of  our  own  city  of  Wilmington.  For  it  was  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus,  the  great  champion  of  the  Reformation  in 
that  struggle,  who  organized  the  first  Swedish  expedition  to 
the  New  World ;  it  was  that  prolonged  war  with  its  exact- 
ing demands  that  caused  the  postponement  of  the  enter- 
prise; and  it  was  the  last  request  of  the  great  king  who 
was  sacrificed  in  that  war  which  impelled  the  resumption 
and  active  prosecution  of  the  project  for  colonization  to 
America  that  resulted  in  starting  the  voyages  from  father- 
land  to   the    Delaware,  and  finally  brought  the   Swedish 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  5 

immigrants  to  their  rocky  landing-place  within  the  limits  of 
Wilmington. 

It  was  in  great  measure  the  same  religious  fervor  that 
impelled  the  several  movements  of  people  from  Europe  to 
the  original  colonization  and  settlement  of  the  several  sec- 
tions of  our  common  country.  The  pious  devotion  of  the 
Pilgrim  fathers  in  New  England ;  the  heroic  zeal  of  the 
Jesuit  missionaries  in  carrying  the  gospel  to  the  heathen 
through  the  trackless  wilds  of  the  upper  Mississippi ;  the 
steadfast  trust  of  the  Quaker's  "  testimony"  in  suffering 
persecution  in  the  Old  World  and  returning  good  for  evil 
in  the  New;  the  stern  persistence  of  the  uncompromising 
Scotch-Irish  in  maintaining  his  faith  in  the  barren  strong- 
holds of  the  Atlantic  mountain  ranges ;  the  broad,  just  views 
of  the  enlightened  Catholics  of  Maryland  in  their  early 
religious  toleration ;  the  honest  solicitude  of  the  English 
church  to  conserve  its  established  rights  against  the  grow- 
ing inroads  of  dissenters  in  Virginia  and  neighboring 
Southern  territories ;  the  tested  fealty  and  chivalrous  zeal 
of  the  suffering  Huguenots  who  fled  to  South  Carolina ; 
the  steady-going  Moravians  and  lesser  sects  and  worship- 
ping societies  who  have  usually  been  content  to  show  their 
faith  by  their  works  in  various  parts  of  the  country — all 
these,  as  well  as  the  Swedish  immigration,  were  in  divers 
ways  and  various  degrees  indebted  to  religious  feeling  for 
their  inspiration  and  sustaining  cause. 

But  there  was  a  difference.  However  common  the  end, 
in  the  means  employed  for  attaining  it  there  was  one  broad 
and  marked  dissimilarity  in  the  origin  and  impelling  agen- 
cies in  these  several  movements.     For  while  some  of  them 


6  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

were  born  of  religious  intolerance  and  were  prosecuted 
chiefly  by  refugees  from  persecution  at  home,  others  re- 
ceived the  kindly  encouragement  and  co-operation  of  the 
home  government.  To  the  latter  class  belonged  the 
Swedish  migration  to  the  New  World.  Nay,  it  received 
not  merely  the  friendly  countenance  and  sympathetic  aid 
of  the  home  government ;  it  owed  its  very  conception  to 
the  Swedish  throne,  which  persevered  in  its  purpose  in  the 
face  of  a  constantly  depleted  treasury  and  a  succession  of 
obstacles.  Against  these  serious  practical  hindrances,  and 
in  spite  of  the  distractions  and  numberless  disabilities  caused 
by  a  great  war,  the  enterprise  owed  its  initiatory  zeal  and  its 
persistent  support  almost  wholly  to  the  pious  and  enlight- 
ened home  government.  A  more  religious  monarch  than 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  one  more  uniformly  guided  by  re- 
ligious considerations  in  his  state  policy,  never  sat  upon  a 
European  throne.  In  a  large  degree  he  deemed  himself  an 
instrument  of  Providence  in  furthering  a  divine  reign  upon 
earth ;  and  there  was  ever  a  lofty  consecration  and  a  seer's 
fervent  spirit  in  this  great  monarch  that  excited  an  admira- 
tion akin  to  awe  among  friends  and  foes  alike.  It  was  this 
that  impelled  him  to  leave  his  throne  and  plunge  in  person 
with  his  small  army,  against  such  fearful  odds,  into  the 
fortunes  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War ;  and  it  was  this  as  a 
primary  incentive  that  caused  his  persistent  devotion  to  the 
Swedish  colonization  in  America.  In  enumerating  its  pur- 
poses in  his  first  proclamation,  the  king  states  his  hopes,  "  if 
God  gives  luck,  that  it  certainly  will  tend  to  the  honor  of 
His  holy  name,  to  our  state's  prosperity,  and  to  our  sub- 
jects' improvement  and  benefit :"  while  in  introducing  the 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  J 

second  charter,  with  its  thirty-seven  articles,  the  king  solicits 
the  generous  support  of  the  people,  among  other  reasons, 
u  for  the  spread  of  the  Holy  Gospel,  and  through  com- 
mercial intercourse  the  hope  of  bringing  the  Indians  to  a 
better  civil  state  and  to  the  truth  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion." 

The  untimely  death  of  the  king  did  not  frustrate  his 
plans,  but  simply  committed  their  execution  to  his  great 
minister,  Oxenstiern,  an  enlightened  and  masterly  states- 
man in  full  sympathy  with  his  king's  aspirations,  who  was 
all  the  more  intent  upon  consummating  them  from  the 
mute  pathos  of  the  great  monarch's  unfinished  purposes, 
and  the  now  undivided  responsibility  he  felt  for  pushing 
them  to  completion.  King  Adolphus,  in  his  desperate 
struggle  for  the  very  existence  of  Protestantism  in  Europe, 
had  felt  the  greater  urgency  for  providing  an  asylum  for 
the  rights  of  conscience  in  the  free  domain  of  the  New 
World.  From  that  virgin  field  his  attention  was  not 
diverted  by  the  engrossing  events  in  which  he  acted  a 
dominant  part.  "  They  did  but  enlarge  his  views,"  says 
the  historian  Bancroft;  and  he  now,  but  a  few  days  be- 
fore his  death  on  the  field  of  Liitzen,  recommended  the 
colonizing  enterprise  to  the  people  of  Germany,  which 
he  reurged  later  as  a  dying  request  to  his  own  country- 
men. Accordingly,  in  spite  of  continued  requisitions  from 
the  wasting  war,  preparations  were  resumed  with  new 
vigor;  and  in  order  that  the  religious  needs  of  the  col- 
onists should  be  promptly  cared  for,  one  of  the  earliest 
of  Sweden's  ten  expeditions  to  the  Delaware  carried  a 
clergyman    provided    with    books    of    devotion    and    all 


8  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

churchly  appointments  for  worship ;  and  on  the  spot  where 
they  first  landed  to  settle,  and  within  the  same  enclosure 
that  embraced  their  first  structure  for  occupation  and  de- 
fence, they  built  their  first  edifice  for  worship.  In  that 
little  chapel  in  Fort  Christina,  built  on  the  rocks  within  the 
present  limits  of  this  city,  the  first  Swedish  clergyman — 
the  Rev.  Reorus  Torkillus — conducted  the  first  Christian 
services  ever  held  on  the  shores  of  the  old  South  or  Dela- 
ware river  or  bay. 

This  pioneer  rector  was  born  in  West  Gothland,  Swedenr 
in  the  year  1608,  and  came  to  Christina  with  the  second 
expedition,  which  arrived  in  1640.  He  took  a  wife  from 
among  his  own  parishioners  in  the  New  World,  setting  an 
example  at  the  outset  of  a  sacred  and  promising  mission 
which  was  generally  followed  by  his  clerical  successors. 
But  the  pious  career  thus  auspiciously  begun  was  destined 
to  short  life.  Torkillus  was  taken  sick  on  the  23d  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1643,  and  died  on  the  7th  of  September  of  the  same 
year,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-five,  leaving  one  child.  He 
was  probably  buried  in  the  old  church-yard  near  the  south 
end  of  the  present  edifice.  We  are  not  informed  whether 
the  deceased  rector  was  succeeded  by  another  appointee  to 
continue  services  in  the  chapel  in  Fort  Christina.  But  as 
this  was  as  yet  the  only  place  of  worship,  it  is  probable  that 
the  Swedes  here  continued  their  services,  perhaps  by  the 
lay  reading  of  psalms  and  sermons,  at  least  until  supplied 
with  another  minister  and  church.  It  is  certain  that  in 
Governor  Beekman's  time,  prior  to  the  English  conquest  in 
1664,  Andreas  Hudde,  who  had  been  the  Dutch  commander 
at  Fort  Nassau  (Gloucester),  officiated  as  clerk  in  the  church 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  9 

at  Christina  for  a  time,  under  Rev.  Mr.  Lock,  who  was  then 
the  only  Swedish  clergyman  in  the  country. 

The  second  Swedish  church  was  erected,  three  years 
later,  on  Tennakong,  or  Tinicum  Island,  in  the  year  1646, 
and  there  the  Rev.  John  Campanius,  who  conducted  the 
ceremonies  attending  its  consecration,  also  laid  out  a  grave- 
yard, in  which  the  first  interment  was  made  on  the  28th  of 
September,  1646.  This  second  church  on  the  Delaware 
was  built  under  the  auspices  of  the  celebrated  Governor 
Printz,  who  arrived  in  February,  1643,  a&er  a  memorable 
voyage  of  perilous  storms  and  divers  delays,  which  termi- 
nated, "by  God's  grace,"  in  one  hundred  and  fifty  days. 
The  continued  prominence  given  to  the  religious  purposes 
of  these  Swedish  expeditions  is  shown  by  the  instructions 
given  to  Governor  Printz  by  the  Swedish  government, 
which,  among  the  first  of  the  twenty-eight  articles,  require 
him  "  to  promote  by  the  most  zealous  endeavors  a  sincere 
piety  in  all  respects  toward  Almighty  God,  to  maintain  the 
public  worship  conformably  to  the  rights  and  doctrines  of 
the  national  church,  to  support  a  proper  ecclesiastical  disci- 
pline, to  urge  instruction  and  virtuous  education  among  the 
young,"  etc. ;  while  he  is  urged  to  persist  in  the  peaceful 
policy  of  the  Swedes  toward  the  Indians  by  promptly  re- 
newing and  confirming  the  old  treaty  by  which  they  had 
conveyed  to  the  Swedes  the  western  shore  of  the  Dela- 
ware; and,  while  always  recognizing  the  natives  as  the 
rightful  owners  of  the  country,  he  was  to  treat  them  in  the 
most  equitable  and  humane  manner,  and  to  accomplish,  as 
far  as  practicable,  their  conversion  to  Christianity  and  their 
adoption  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  civilized  life. 


10  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

In  furtherance  of  this  peaceful  policy  toward  the  Indians, 
this  distinguished  clergyman,  Rev.  John  Campanius,  who 
came  with  Governor  Printz,  specially  devoted  his  labors  to 
the  instruction  and  conversion  of  the  natives ;  to  which  end 
he  zealously  applied  himself  to  the  prompt  acquisition  of 
their  language.  He  began  the  translation  of  Luther's 
shorter  catechism  in  1646,  which  was  probably  the  very 
first  work  of  translation  into  the  Indian  language  in  America, 
as  the  first  Indian  translation  by  John  Eliot,  the  New  Eng- 
land missionary,  was  not  published  till  1664.  And,  more- 
over, as  Campanius,  during  the  three  years  prior  to  his  work 
of  translation  in  1646,  had  actively  labored  with  the  Indians, 
and,  while  exchanging  friendly  visits  with  them,  had  always 
taken  care  to  teach  them  the  rudimentary  ideas  of  the 
Christian  religion,  the  Swedes  may  claim  the  honor  of  hav- 
ing sent  the  first  of  Christian  missionaries  among  the  natives 
of  America,  while  Eliot  held  his  first  service  among  them 
on  the  28th  of  October,  1646.  The  Rev.  Campanius,  in  1648, 
returned  to  Sweden,  where  he  completed  his  translation  of 
the  catechism,  which  was  printed  in  Stockholm,  in  the  In- 
dian and  Swedish  languages,  in  1696,  a  copy  of  which  is  in 
the  library  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society.  In  this 
celebrated  work  a  notable  deviation  may  be  found  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  which,  instead  of  the  usual  words  "  give  us 
this  day  our  daily  bread,"  etc.,  reads  "  give  us  this  day  a 
plentiful  supply  of  venison  and  corn,"  thus  better  suiting  the 
comprehension  of  the  Indian  mind. 

Following  Rev.  John  Campanius,  but  during  the  admin- 
istration of  Governor  Printz,  which  terminated  the  latter 
part  of  1653,  there  arrived  two  Swedish  clergymen,  the  Rev. 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  II 

Laurentius  Laers,  or  Lokinius,  commonly  known  as  Pastor 
Lock,  and  Rev.  Israel  Holgh.  The  latter,  after  a  short  stay, 
returned  to  Sweden,  while  Pastor  Lock,  who  was  probably 
Campanius's  successor,  lived  a  long  and  active  life  as  minister 
in  different  churches,  and  died  in  the  year  1688.  We  will 
see  more  of  him  hereafter. 

Following  these  arrivals,  there  came  to  succeed  Governor 
Printz  Commissary  and  Counsellor  Johan  Claudii  Rising, 
who  arrived  in  May,  1654,  in  company  with  Lindstrom,  the 
military  engineer,  and  various  officers  and  soldiers.  With 
them  came  two  clergymen,  the  Rev.  Mathias  Nicolai  Ner- 
tunius  and  Rev.  Mr.  Petrus  Laurentii  Hjort.  The  latter, 
whom  Rising  described  as  "  both  temporally  and  spiritually 
a  poor  parson,"  took  charge  of  the  congregation  at  the  cap- 
tured Fort  Trinity  (New  Castle).  But  both  left  the  country 
with  Rising  upon  his  surrender  of  Fort  Christina  in  Sep- 
tember, 1655. 

With  the  invading  expedition  compelling  this  surrender 
of  Fort  Christina  in  1655  there  came  a  Rev.  Mr.  Megapo- 
lensis  as  chaplain  of  Stuyvesant's  forces ;  but  as  he  came  in 
the  service  of  the  enemy,  and  probably  returned  with  some 
of  them,  it  is  likely  that  the  Swedes  experienced  few  or  none 
of  his  friendly  ministrations. 

After  the  surrender  of  Fort  Christina,  but  before  the  news 
of  it  had  reached  Europe,  a  Swedish  vessel,  the  Mcrcurius, 
arrived  in  the  Delaware,  bringing  the  Rev.  Mr.  Mathias,  a 
Swedish  minister,  who  remained  about  two  years  and  then 
returned  to  Sweden. 

With  the  undyked  marshes,  exposing  rank  vegetation 
with  each  fall  of  the  tide,  there  was  increasing  tendency  to 


12  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

fever;  and  great  sickness,  with  attending  destitution,  afflicted 
the  Christina  settlers  during  the  years  1657  and  1658,  when, 
to  stay  its  effects,  a  "  fast,  prayer,  and  thank"  day  was  offi- 
cially observed  on  the  13th  of  March,  1658,  while,  to  the 
same  end,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Welius,  on  the  day  following, 
preached  a  sermon  at  Altona  (Fort  Christina)  at  the  request 
of  the  fort  commissary.* 

On  the  18th  of  March,  1662,  it  was  ordered  that  a  fast 
and  prayer  day  be  thereafter  kept  quarterly,  notice  of  which 
was  to  be  given  by  tolling  the  bell  of  the  fort. 

On  the  24th  of  July,  1663,  the  Rev.  Abelius  Zetscoven 
received  a  call  from  the  Swedish  congregation ;  but  the  Rev. 
Laers  or  Pastor  Lock  so  strongly  opposed  his  preaching, 
that  the  commissioners  were  obliged  to  threaten  him  with  a 
protest  before  he  would  allow  the  new  minister  to  preach 
on  Whit-Sunday.  This  minister,  the  Rev.  Abelius  Zets- 
coven, gave  his  sermon  at  Tinicum  Church  on  the  last 
Monday  of  Pentecost,  at  the  request  of  the  Swedish  com- 
missioners. They  desired  to  engage  him  also  as  a  school- 
master at  the  same  salary  as  that  paid  to  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Lock,  but  the  people  of  New  Amstel  (New  Castle),  where 
he  had  been  employed,  would  not  dismiss  him ;  and  he 
never  had  charge  of  any  congregation  in  the  South  or 
Delaware  River  as  a  regularly  ordained  minister. 

These  embrace  all  the  names  of  clergymen  and  refer- 
ences to  church  services,  mentioned  in  chronological  order, 
that  I  have  been  able  to  glean  from  the  old  court  records, 
clerical   authorities,  or  other   available   sources,  from   the 

*  This  Rev.  Mr.  Welius  died  the  following  year,  1659. 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  I  3 

landing  of  the  Swedes  in  1638  to  about  the  year  1667. 
Down  to  this  date  all  action  looking  to  religious  ends  seems 
to  have  contemplated  only  the  supply  of  Swedish  needs, 
and  in  the  interest  of  the  Swedish  Lutheran  Church.  In- 
deed, it  may  be  mentioned  as  a  remarkable  fact  that  the 
provision  for  church  supplies  and  management  of  religious 
affairs  were  then  wholly  in  Swedish  hands,  while  the  con- 
duct of  business  and  the  means  for  its  daily  transaction 
were  as  exclusively  by  Dutch  money  and  measures,  which 
indeed  continued  for  many  years  later.  The  Dutch  during 
their  rule  built  no  churches  or  otherwise  supplied  the 
religious  needs  of  their  colonists  on  the  Delaware.  Nor 
did  the  Swedes,  with  their  earlier  and  longer  supremacy, 
do  business  with  Swedish  currency  or  according  to  Swedish 
standards  of  value  or  measurement.  Or  at  least  there  is  no 
evidence  of  it  in  old  records  or  by  tradition.  The  contrast 
is  not  so  much  a  difference  between  the  two  peoples  as  one 
between  two  methods  and  aims  animating  the  two  powers 
behind  the  respective  nationalities.  The  Dutch  were 
traders  sent  by  a  company  whose  object  was  wholly  com- 
mercial. The  Swedes  were  wholly  agriculturalists,  aided 
by  a  pious  home  government  whose  purpose  was  largely 
religious  propagation. 

Such  had  been  the  situation  prior  to  the  operation  of 
causes  which  were  now  ripe  for  change.  During  the 
twenty-nine  years  since  the  landing  of  the  Swedes  in  1638 
the  government  had  twice  changed  hands,  first  by  the 
Dutch  conquest  of  the  Swedes  at  Fort  Christina  in  1655, 
and  then  by  the  English  conquest  of  the  Dutch  in  1664. 
The  three  years  of  English  rule  had  as  yet  effected  little 


14  CRANE   HOOK  CHURCH. 

noticeable  change  of  speech  or  customs  among  the  two 
subject  nationalities ;  but  during  the  prior  nine  years  of 
Dutch  supremacy  there  had  been  such  modification  and 
intermingling  of  the  languages  of  the  conquerors  and 
conquered  that  the  Swedish  and  Dutch  settlers  were  daily 
coming  to  a  better  understanding  of  each  other.  Originally 
from  the  same  Teutonic  family  stock,  the  languages  of  the 
two  nations  were  never  greatly  dissimilar:  their  govern- 
ments at  home  had  long  stood  upon  a  footing  of  fair  neigh- 
borly comity;  they  held  much  commercial  intercourse  and 
had  much  in  common  in  industrial  tendencies,  and  more  in 
religious  faith  and  social  usages.  With  the  decline  of  the 
old  Dutch  trading  company,  its  Dutch  dependents  on  the 
Delaware  had  resorted  to  farming  upon  their  own  re- 
sources, and  the  settlers  from  the  two  nations  being  thus 
thrown  into  nearer  connection,  upon  a  common  footing, 
with  common  aspirations,  were  not  long  in  reaching  a  com- 
mon recognition  of  each  other.  This  was  followed  by 
closer  social  intercourse,  which  led  to  intermarriages,  which 
through  family  relationships  completed  the  various  ties, 
cementing  their  union  as  one  people  with  a  common 
destiny. 

Here,  then,  was  a  widened  opportunity  with  the  incentive 
of  combined  in  lieu  of  divided  resources.  The  opportunity 
was  improved,  and  the  result  was  the  erection  of  the  church 
at  Crane  Hook.  Built  for  the  joint  accommodation,  and 
with  the  combined  means  of  Dutch  and  Swedish  worship- 
pers, its  site  was  chosen  in  almost  the  exact  available  centre 
of  the  surrounding  communities  for  whom  it  was  designed. 
The  edifice  stood  nearly  midway  between  the  Dutch  resi- 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  I  5 

dents  at  New  Castle  and  below  and  the  several  Swedish 
settlements  beginning  at  Christina  and  extending  along  the 
creeks  flowing  from  the  west  and  north  beyond;  while, 
although  nominally  further  from  settlers  on  the  east  side 
of  the  Delaware,  the  church  was  practically  as  near  them  by 
reason  of  the  easier  water  transit,  at  that  time  almost  the 
sole  way  of  travel  prior  to  the  construction  of  inland  roads 
and  bridges. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  little  log  church  at  Crane 
Hook  supplied  a  wide  circuit  of  worshippers,  embracing 
residents  on  the  easterly  shore  south  of  Raccoon  Creek 
with  those  on  Penn's  Neck  and  the  region  toward  Salem, 
and  including  the  entire  westerly  shore  below  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Chester.  And  notwithstanding  the  fast  fusing  unity 
of  the  two  nationalities,  with  so  many  communities  whose 
intermingling  tongues  were  yet  in  various  stages  of  transi- 
tion, it  may  be  imagined  that  the  task  of  a  single  preacher 
in  making  himself  understood  by  all  the  congregation  was 
not  an  easy  one,  as  it  presumably  required  a  curious  con- 
glomeration of  Swedish  and  Dutch  idioms,  with  an  occa- 
sional English  word  or  phrase  as  a  sort  of  compromising 
cement  and  preparation  for  absorption  into  that  compelling 
language  which  vaunts  its  growing  universality  as  the  des- 
tined speech  of  the  modern  world. 

These  are  the  peculiar  circumstances  which  lend  signifi- 
cant interest  to  this  Crane  Hook  Church.  Its  character  and 
construction  mark  a  definable  stage  in  the  softening  of 
national  prejudices  and  the  merging  of  racial  elements  of 
our  composite  population.  This  growing  community  of  in- 
terests is  exhibited  at  once  in  the  commingling  of  the  Ian- 


1 6  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

guages,  sympathies,  and .  habits  of  the  two  peoples ;  in  the 
combination  of  appliances  for  a  common  worship ;  in  the 
selection  of  a  central  church  site,  as  far  as  practicable,  for 
the  equal  accommodation  of  all  concerned  ;  and  it  is  indi- 
cated even  in  the  name  of  the  selected  site,  which  has  suc- 
cessively undergone  the  changeful  appellations  derived  from 
three  different  languages.  It  was  first  called  Trane  Udden, 
from  the  two  Swedish  words  trana,  crane,  and  udden,  point 
or  cape.  "  Hook,"  as  here  applied,  although  little  used  or 
known  in  modern  speech,  has  a  common  derivation  in  the 
sense  of  "  angle"  in  the  several  family  branches  of  our  com- 
mon English  tongue.  Its  orthography,  under  the  Dutch 
supremacy,  held  firm  sway  variously  as  hoek  and  hoeck, 
the  whole  word  being  spelled  "  Kraenhoek."  But  all  prior 
designations,  like  the  prior  rule  of  other  nationalities,  in  due 
time  yielded  to  the  dominating  English ;  hence  the  Crane 
Hook  as  we  know  it  to-day. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  all  the  minute  circum- 
stances which  preceded  and  attended  the  construction  of 
Crane  Hook  Church, — to  learn  just  those  particulars  which 
in  the  case  of  our  existing  old  Stone  Church  have  proved 
so  attractive  to  the  revering  descendants  of  its  builders, — 
the  influences  leading  to  the  initiatory  steps,  the  collection 
of  the  requisite  means,  the  selection  of  the  site,  the  progress 
of  the  work,  the  hopes,  fears,  delays  concerning  it,  and  the 
final  completion  of  the  humble  edifice.  But,  unfortunately, 
the  accessible  facts  touching  the  ancient  structure  are  very 
meagre.  The  church  records  prior  to  those  left  by  Rev. 
Mr.  Bjork  are  far  less  complete  than  his  careful  details,  and 
have  never  been  translated,  while  a  diligent  search  among 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  1 7 

the  papers  at  home  and  in  the  archives  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Historical  Society  has  added  but  little  to  our  scanty  infor- 
mation. 

Crane  Hook  Church  was  built  about  the  close  of  1666 
or  beginning  of  1667.  It  was  constructed  of  logs,  which 
rested  upon  large  rocks  serving  as  corner-stones  and  sup- 
porting the  edifice  above  the  ground.  This  much  we 
know :  we  know  the  site  upon  which  it  stood.  But  beyond 
these  simple  facts,  and  the  further  fact  that  the  building 
served  as  an  adequate  place  of  worship  for  about  thirty-two 
years,  little  can  be  ascertained. 

Nicholas  Collin,  in  his  notes  on  the  "  Memoirs  of  Min- 
ister Rudman,"  among  the  records  at  Wicaco,  as  quoted  by 
Benjamin  Ferris,  states,  in  referring  to  the  early  Swedes, 
that  "  their  mild  virtues  also  changed  their  former  foes,  the 
Dutch,  into  friends,  so  that  they  became  members  of  their 
church.  This  happened  the  more  easily  as  the  Hollanders 
had  no  clergyman  nor  church  of  their  own.  They  were  of 
the  Reformed  Protestant  communion, — not  very  different 
from  the  Lutheran.  Their  respective  languages  are  in  a 
great  measure  congenial;  and  thus,  when  a  great  many  of 
the  Dutch  families  had  joined  in  the  Swedish  worship,  a 
small  church  was  built  at  Crane  Hook,  about  one  and  a 
half  miles  from  the  fort,  on  the  south  side  of  the  creek, 
being  convenient  for  the  Dutch  at  New  Castle." 

Acrelius,  in  his  "  History  of  New  Sweden,"  says :  "  The 
church  at  Christina  usually  held  its  services  in  Christina 
fort ;  but  for  greater  convenience  a  small  wooden  church 
was,  in  1667,  erected  at  Tranhook,  at  the  distance  of  one- 
fourth  of  a  Swedish  mile  from  the  fort  on  the  creek :  this 


1 8  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

was  more  suitable  for  the  Hollanders  who  dwelt  at  Sand- 
hook"  (New  Castle). 

Such  are  the  brief  references  to  Crane  Hook  Church ; 
writers  invariably  assuming  its  existence  without  mention 
of  any  prior  facts  relating  to  its  construction.  Yet  for 
thirty  years  the  edifice  subserved  all  purposes  as  the  centre 
of  all  the  lower  or  Christina  settlements  of  church  at- 
tendants. 

Coming  after  the  chapel  at  Fort  Christina  and  the  church 
on  Tinicum  Island,  Crane  Hook  was  the  third  church  on 
the  Delaware.  The  fourth  was  at  Wicaco,  the  old  block- 
house having  been  fitted  up  for  temporary  use,  and  which 
gave  place  to  the  brick  structure  built  there  in  the  year 
1700,  which  still  stands  as  a  memento  of  the  pious  zeal  of 
the  early  Swedes,  being  but  two  years  the  junior  of  our 
own  venerable  edifice  in  Wilmington.  It  is  proper  here 
to  state  that,  according  to  Acrelius,  at  an  early  date  there 
stood  on  Sandhook  (New  Castle)  a  small  wooden  church 
for  a  while,  but  without  regular  attendance. 

During  the  thirty-two  years  of  its  existence  as  a  place 
of  worship,  religious  services  were  conducted  in  Crane  Hook 
Church  by  three  regularly  ordained  ministers.  These  were 
Reverends  Laurentius  Lokinius  or  Pastor  Lock,  Jacobus 
Fabritius  and  Eric  Bjork.  The  first,  Pastor  Lock,  came  to 
America  during  the  administration  of  Governor  Printz 
about  or  before  the  year  1653,  and  first  officiated  in  the 
church  on  Tinicum  Island  as  successor  to  Rev.  John  Cam- 
panius.  For  many  years  this  Pastor  Lock  was  a  prominent 
actor  in  river  affairs,  sacred  and  secular,  his  name  frequently 
occurring-  in  various  attitudes  in  the  law  records  of  the 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  1 9 

time.  He  was  for  several  years  the  only  minister  serving 
the  different  congregations  on  the  entire  river, — a  state  of 
affairs  from  which  he  was  himself  one  of  the  first  sufferers. 
For  when  he  had  the  misfortune  to  be  deserted  by  an 
eloping  wife  and  sought  another  to  supply  her  place,  he 
found  it  easier  to  find  a  willing  companion  than  to  make  her 
his  wife,  from  the  lack  of  a  clergyman  to  perform  the  wed- 
ding ceremony.  And  when  from  the  necessities  of  his 
large  household  the  urgency  tempted  him  to  perform  his 
own  ceremony  in  marrying  himself  to  his  proposed  bride, 
who  was  but  seventeen  years  old,  his  offence  caused  his 
suspension  from  the  ministry  for  a  time.  But  his  sufferings 
did  not  end  here.  For  when,  in  search  of  evidence  against 
the  wife-stealer,  he  broke  open  the  renegade's  trunk,  the 
poor  man  as  a  punishment  was  made  to  pay  all  the  debts 
the  absconder  had  left  behind;  a  travesty  of  justice  rarely 
excelled  in  the  jurisprudence  of  any  age  or  country.  Pastor 
Lock  had  moreover  in  the  people's  behalf  more  than  once 
condemned  the  extortions  of  an  odious  government,  by 
which  he  incurred  the  suspicion  of  having  aided  a  prepos- 
terous movement  known  as  the  "  Long  Finn  Rebellion," 
which  alarmed  the  country  in  1669,  and  for  which  he  earned 
the  contemptuous  censure  of  the  governor  in  New  York. 
After  long  and  varied  service  Pastor  Lock  became  afflicted 
with  lameness,  and  according  to  Acrelius  "  his  old  age  was 
burthened  with  many  troubles,"  from  which  he  was  relieved 
by  death  in  1688. 

Rev.  Jacobus  Fabritius,  the  second  pastor  at  Crane  Hook 
Church,  was  equally  celebrated  as  an  active  participant  in 
both  religious  and  general  affairs  on  the  Delaware,  where 


20  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

his  name  frequently  appears  in  the  reports  of  both  church 
and  legal  proceedings.  But  the  somewhat  contradictory- 
records  render  uncertain  the  date  and  duration  of  his  min- 
isterial services  at  Crane  Hook  Church.  From  the  often 
repeated  statement  that  he  was  called  directly  from  New 
York  and  preached  his  first  sermon  at  the  Wicaco  Church 
in  the  year  1677,  it  has  been  inferred  that  that  occasion 
marked  his  first  appearance  on  the  Delaware ;  but  the 
records  distinctly  show  that  he  had  been  among  the  lower 
congregation  here  in  a  presumably  clerical  capacity  at  least 
five  years  previously.  He  was  a  Dutchman,  and  his  first 
arrival  in  America  was  at  New  York  on  the  20th  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1669;  and  for  the  two  years  following  he  ministered 
to  the  Lutherans  there,  apparently  amid  much  dissension, 
when,  in  July,  167 1,  his  New  York  congregation  expressed 
the  desire  "  to  have  nothing  further  to  do  with  him,"  and 
appointed  a  person  to  settle  his  accounts.  Thereupon 
Fabritius  asked  leave  to  give  his  valedictory,  and  the  fol- 
lowing year  he  appeared  on  the  Delaware.  A  petition  from 
the  Lutherans  on  the  Delaware,  with  fourteen  signatures 
appended  on  behalf  of  the  whole  congregations  concerned, 
dated  June  1,  1675,  refers  to  a  former  petition  with  a  docu- 
ment dated  the  10th  of  December,  1672,  whereby  they 
divided  the  river  into  two  parishes,  so  that  all  above  Ver- 
drietige  Hook  (Edgemoor)  should  be  under  the  pastorate 
of  Rev.  Mr.  Laers  (Pastor  Lock),  and  all  below  Verdrietige 
Hook  under  the  pastorate  of  Magister  Fabritius ;  and  they 
humbly  requested  the  governor  to  confirm  the  desired 
division  and  "  also  their  Magr  Jakobus  Fabricius."  This 
was  presented  as  from  "  the  churches  of  Swaenewyck  and 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  21 

Kraenhoek;"  but  it  was  followed  in  August  by  a  remon- 
strance from  a  few  of  the  Swedes  and  Finns  belonging  to 
Crane  Hook  Church  against  the  acceptance  of  Fabritius  as 
their  minister  on  the  ground  that  neither  they  nor  their 
wives  and  children  could  understand  him.  No  further 
action  is  shown  respecting  this  particular  matter ;  and,  as 
Fabritius  was  a  month  later  wholly  suspended  from  exer- 
cising his  function  as  a  minister  or  preaching  anywhere 
within  the  government,  we  are  left  in  doubt  as  to  the  extent 
or  continuance  of  his  earliest  ministerial  services  on  the 
Delaware.  The  alleged  cause  of  his  suspension  from  the 
ministry  was  his  violent  and  lawless  conduct  during  a  bitter 
contest  respecting  the  labor  and  taxation  for  dyking  certain 
marshes  near  New  Castle.  The  opposing  parties  seem  to 
have  assembled  in  Crane  Hook  Church,  where  Fabritius 
vigorously  protested  against  the  scheme,  and  the  angry 
contestants  were  led  into  a  disturbance,  for  which  the  pastor 
and  an  accomplice  were  promptly  arrested.  A  vigorous 
opponent  of  the  project  and  resulting  taxation  having  been 
seized  by  the  authorities,  the  Magister  earnestly  denounced 
the  unjust  proceedings,  loudly  declaring  that  if  the  arrested 
man,  who  had  done  no  wrong,  must  go  to  prison,  he,  too, 
would  go ;  and  was  taken  at  his  word. 

It  is  probable  that  in  the  early  lack  of  places  for  public 
assemblies,  Crane  Hook  Church  had  before  been  used  for 
meetings  of  citizens ;  and  this  may  not  have  been  the  first 
time  its  walls  resounded  with  the  noises  of  wrangling  as 
well  as  with  the  sounds  of  worship. 

Readers  of  these  old  records  are  unavoidably  impressed 
with  much  of  the  reported  conduct  of  these  colonial  minis- 


22  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

ters  as  discreditable  and  derogatory  to  their  calling.  But  it 
should  be  remembered  that  the  statements  come  from 
unfriendly  reporters  giving  one  side  of  debatable  subjects, 
often  distorted  by  national  prejudices.  Nor  should  it  be 
forgotten  that  these  clergymen  had  cast  their  lot  with  the 
common  people  engaged  in  a  common  struggle  with  the 
forces  of  nature,  wherein  it  was  difficult  to  consult  the  mere 
proprieties  of  life.  In  close  sympathy  with  their  parishion- 
ers in  all  their  trials  and  hardships,  these  ministers  were  in 
no  condition  to  pose  in  dignified  seclusion  as  models  of 
clerical  decorum :  their  frontier  necessities  did  not  admit  of 
it.  An  impartial  scrutiny  of  their  conduct  reveals  no 
crime  or  actual  immorality,  and,  if  they  were  sometimes 
carried  beyond  prudence  or  propriety  in  the  heat  of  con- 
troversy, it  was  not  an  unpardonable  offence.  Indeed,  it 
may  well  be  doubted  whether  it  was  not  to  the  credit  of 
Pastor  Lock  that  he  resented  the  petty  arrogance  of  the 
government  at  the  risk  of  promoting  rebellion,  or  whether 
Minister  Fabritius  did  not  evince  a  loyal  faith  to  conviction 
in  offering  to  share  imprisonment  with  the  man  he  thought 
wronged.  Both  pastors  probably  deserved  the  reverent 
affection  their  respective  congregations  expressed  for  them. 
The  practical  government  of  these  river  territories  was 
then  a  species  of  paternal  despotism.  Under  the  supreme 
and  irresponsible  rule  of  the  Duke  of  York,  it  was  adminis- 
tered by  an  executive  "commander"  and  seven  justices  of 
the  peace,  of  whom  any  four  constituted  a  court  of  judica- 
ture. They  were  appointed  by  the  duke's  governor  in 
New  York,  and  their  offices  and  acts  were  alike  dependent 
upon  his  will.     Under  such   control  their  powers  seemed 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  2$ 

without  limit,  ranging  over  the  whole  scope  of  colonial 
affairs,  temporal,  spiritual,  and  mixed.  They  ordered  the 
construction  of  dykes  and  roads ;  they  undertook  to  medi- 
ate in  household  troubles  and  neighborhood  scandals. 
They  established  churches  and  enforced  payment  to  the 
ministers ;  they  required  church-wardens  to  test  and  secure 
just  standards  of  measurement ;  they  ordered  the  repair  of 
private  grist-mills ;  they  cared  for  the  provisioning  of  inden- 
tured children  at  the  expiration  of  their  domestic  terms ; 
they  ordered  the  stoppage  of  vessels  sailing  above  favored 
New  Castle ;  and  in  at  least  one  instance  they  permitted  an 
inhabitant  of  Crane  Hook  to  continue  living  there  with  two 
wives,  on  the  ground  that  both  Dutch  and  English  pre- 
cedents could  be  found  for  such  indulgence. 

After  the  early  service  of  Magister  Fabritius  at  Crane 
Hook  Church,  as  before  stated,  this  gentleman  was  called 
in  1677  to  Wicaco,  where  he  served  the  congregation, 
probably  without  interruption,  until  August,  1684,  at  least, 
and  perhaps  longer.  It  is  not  known  at  what  time  he 
returned  from  Wicaco  to  Crane  Hook  Church,  but  he  con- 
tinued to  officiate  in  the  latter  until  his  growing  blindness 
prevented  uninterupted  service,  when  it  was  opened  and 
closed  at  intervals  of  months  at  a  time.  Mr.  Fabritius  died 
in  1693;  and  with  the  earlier  death  in  1688  of  Pastor  Lock 
with  his  prior  disabilities  all  the  river  churches  were  desti- 
tute of  ministers  for  several  years  prior  to  the  arrival  of  the 
missionaries  sent  from  Sweden,  when  Rev.  Eric  Bjork  con- 
ducted his  first  divine  service  in  Crane  Hook  Church  on 
the  nth  of  July,  1697.  This  zealous  rector  at  once  entered 
upon  the  work  of  erecting  the  now  existing  stone  edifice 


24  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

familiarly  known  as  the  "  Old  Swedes'  Church ; "  but  he 
meanwhile  continued  services  for  nearly  two  years  longer 
in  Crane  Hook  Church,  wherein  the  last  divine  service  was 
held  on  the  fourth  Sunday  after  Easter  in  the  year  1699, 
while  the  dedication  services  in  the  new  church  took  place 
on  Trinity  Sunday  of  the  same  year.  Until  the  completion 
of  this  now  ancient  structure,  Crane  Hook  Church  served 
the  purposes  of  the  fast  growing  Swedish  parishioners,  but, 
owing  to  a  like  growth  and  for  greater  convenience  of  the 
Dutch,  they  had  partially  formed  a  separate  congregation  at 
Swanwyke  on  the  easterly  side  of  New  Castle,  to  which 
end  they  had  taken  steps  to  secure  land  for  a  church  site, 
grave-yard,  and  glebe  in  1678,  and  by  1683  they  had  dis- 
solved religious  partnership  with  the  Swedes  at  Crane 
Hook  and  built  a  church  of  their  own,  as  is  shown  by  a 
letter  written  in  the  latter  year  by  William  Penn  stating 
that  the  Dutch  had  a  meeting-place  for  religious  worship  at 
New  Castle. 

The  same  increase  of  population  in  due  time  led  to  the 
erection  of  churches  on  the  easterly  side  of  the  river,  event- 
ually causing  the  then  new  and  now  old  Swedes'  Church 
to  serve  the  needs  of  the  more  immediately  surrounding 
settlements  only. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  the  predominant  and  con- 
tinued use  of  Dutch  money  and  measurements  in  the  busi- 
ness affairs  of  the  olden  time.  Indeed,  both  the  tenacity  of 
old  customs  and  transition  to  the  new  are  curiously  illus- 
trated in  the  reported  transactions  of  business  and  other 
affairs.  It  was  something  like  ten  years  after  the  English 
conquest  in    1664  before  the  names   of  English  currency 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  2$ 

appear  at  all  in  the  old  records,  and  for  twenty-five  years 
after  the  English  gained  control  the  guilders  and  styvers  of 
the  conquered  Dutch  continued  to  be  more  designated  in 
business  transactions  than  the  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence 
of  their  conquerors.  Progress,  indeed,  in  business,  re- 
ligious or  national  unity  was  not  wholly  uninterrupted, 
but  rather  with  reflex  waves,  which  mark,  if  they  do  not 
quicken,  the  general  advance,  as  was  seen  in  the  retrograde 
motion  of  a  few  Swedish  church  members  who  were  slow 
in  comprehending  Dutch  followed  by  closer  union  in  re- 
ligious and  social  matters.  The  unification  was  inevitable, 
however  hindered ;  and  in  the  different  stages  of  transition 
among  the  varied  nationalities  not  only  all  the  different 
kinds  of  money  from  the  different  home  governments,  in- 
cluding the  wampum  of  the  Indians,  but  beaver-skins,  schip- 
ples  of  wheat,  pounds  of  tobacco,  and  other  commodities 
were  used  as  business  currency,  not  unfrequently  all  of 
them  being  combined  in  a  single  transaction,  while  the 
different  kinds  as  agreed  upon  to  be  paid  were  invariably 
enumerated  and  specified  in  the  written  contract. 

Perhaps  an  average  exhibit,  within  a  small  space,  of 
those  primitive  transactions  relating  to  court,  church,  and 
currency  affairs  will  be  afforded  by  a  single  document, 
which  I  here  present  from  the  old  records  in  its  original 
orthography  and  phraseology : 

Appeared  before  the  august  court  at  New  Castle,  "  Elice 
the  wife  of  Orle  Torson  decd  shewing  by  Petition  that 
Jacobus  Fabritius  heretofore  did  borrow  of  her  husband 
the  sum  of  seventy  and  seven  gilders  of  the  money  then 
belonging  to  ye  church  att  Swanwyke,  as  also  that  there 


26  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

was  yett  a  small  parcell  of  wampum  in  her  hands  of  ye  sd 
Church,  defsiring  (sence  those  of  ye  Church  of  Crainhoek 
do  demand  itt)  that  this  court  would  order  her,  to  whom 
she  should  deliver  the  sd  wampum,  as  alfsoe  who  shall  Re- 
ceive ye  money  bake   of  sd  fabritius Ordered  that  the 

wampum  as  also  the  debt  of  fabritius  bee  Received  by  this 
church  of  New  Castle  as  the  nearest  to  itt.  Those  of  ye 
Crainhoek  haveing  already  Received  a  good  part  thereof." 

The  Jacobus  Fabritius  here  mentioned  was  the  rector 
before  referred  to  as  having  officiated  in  Crane  Hook 
Church  at  various  times  between  the  years  1672  and  1677, 
when  he  was  called  as  the  regular  pastor  at  the  Block 
House  church  at  Wicaco.  After  his  service  at  that  place, 
probably  in  1684  or  1685,  he  again  served  Crane  Hook 
Church,  where  he  relieved  Pastor  Lock,  who  had  become 
helplessly  lame  and  otherwise  disabled.  Mr.  Fabritius  had 
begun  to  lose  his  eyesight  about  the  year  1682,  and  his  in- 
creasing blindness  interrupted  his  services,  and  finally  com- 
pelled his  retirement  in  169 1,  when  Charles  Springer,  who 
had  before  aided  the  pastor  at  times,  continued  partial 
public  worship  by  reading  prayers,  psalms,  and  homilies  for 
the  remaining  six  years  until  the  arrival  of  Rev.  Eric  Bjork 
and  his  fellow-missionaries  in  1697. 

After  the  abandonment  of  Crane  Hook  Church  in  1699, 
most  of  the  neighboring  glebe  land,  being  inconvenient  for 
the  use  of  the  minister  of  the  new  church  at  Christina,  was 
soon  after  sold,  and  the  old  log  structure  was  in  time  de- 
molished and  removed  excepting  the  large  supporting 
stones,  some  of  which  continued  to  mark  the  site  down  to  a 
time  within  the  memory  of  the  writer  of  these  lines.     Part 


CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH.  2J 

of  the  site  and  yard  was  afterwards  occupied  by  an  orchard, 
but  was  still  used  for  a  time  as  a  burial-place  for  poor  people. 

The  orchard  trees  are  now  all  gone ;  the  supporting  side 
and  corner-stones  have  disappeared ;  the  majestic  button- 
wood,  which  long  stretched  its  protecting  arms  over  the 
rustic  structure,  died  many  years  ago,  leaving  its  lifeless 
trunk  to  mark  the  spot,  which,  at  last,  is  indicated  only  by 
the  fast  decaying  stump  of  the  historic  tree.  Thus  has 
passed  away  a  cherished  house  of  worship,  replete  with  ten- 
der interest  and  value  as  a  transitional  waymark  in  the 
progress  of  those  ancestral  peoples  whose  life  and  works 
were  the  formative  material  of  the  later  citizenship  of  our 
common  country. 

Crane  Hook  Church  stood  upon  a  beautiful  bank  of  fast- 
land  near  the  river  shore,  with  gently  undulating  fields  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  bright  and  majestic  Delaware  on  the 
other.  To  its  rustic  cupola  the  old  bell,  which  had  long 
done  varied  service  in  Fort  Christina,  was  removed  for  a 
new  lease  of  melodious  life ;  and  it  is  a  pleasing  fancy  to 
recall  its  tones  pealing  over  the  virgin  fields  and  through 
the  echoing  forests  in  mellow  summons  to  its  primitive 
worshippers.  It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  assembled 
congregation  exchanging  neighborly  greetings  under  the 
lofty  buttonwood  at  the  church-door  prior  to  the  service  or 
lingering  in  its  grateful  shade  in  friendly  chat  at  its  close. 
Under  the  leafy  protection  of  this  noble  tree  the  edifice  must 
have  been  a  notable  object  from  the  river,  as  were  the  ar- 
riving boat-loads  of  people  in  their  varied  costumes  a  pic- 
turesque spectacle  from  the  shore.  No  marshy  deposit 
then  separated  the  fastland  shore  from  the  outer  depths  of 


28  CRANE  HOOK  CHURCH. 

the  river,  and  as  the  approaching  worshippers  glided  over 
its  tranquil  surface  to  the  grassy  ascent  to  the  church,  they 
must  have  been  soothed  with  gladdening  suggestions  of  the 
Psalmist's  words,  "  He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green 
pastures :  he  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters."  Perhaps 
even  one  may  not  exaggerate  the  kindly  agency  which  such 
a  picture,  with  that  of  the  fragrant  meads,  the  singing  birds, 
and  the  benign  sky  arching  the  coupled  peace  of  land  and 
water,  may  have  exerted  on  a  sweet  summer  Sabbath  in  at- 
tuning the  simple-hearted  attendants  to  worshipful  thoughts 
of  the  merciful  Father  above  all. 

Should  a  spot  thus  full  alike  of  sacred  associations  and 
historic  significance  be  suffered  to  fade  from  the  memory  of 
men  ?  For  myself,  while  I  may  be  deemed  a  victim  to  the 
morbid  retrospection  belonging  to  growing  years,  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  confess  my  growing  affection  for  these  dear  old 
relics ;  and  there  was  almost  a  personal  element  in  the  feel- 
ing with  which  I  long  continued  to  scan  the  horizon  for  a 
sight  of  the  guarding  old  buttonwood  pathetically  lifting  its 
bare,  dead  limbs  as  in  plaintive  appeal  against  extinction. 
And  when,  upon  its  final  disappearance,  I,  some  months 
ago,  hastened  to  the  spot  after  a  long  absence,  it  was  with 
something  of  the  anxiety  with  which  I  would  have  hastened 
to  the  bedside  of  a  dying  friend,  as  it  was  with  something 
of  heart-felt  relief  that  I  found,  from  the  glad  sight  of  the 
old  tree-stump,  that  it  was  not  yet  too  late  to  repair  the 
mischiefs  of  neglect. 


